


The Sun in Your Eyes

by bravebrigand, JanuaryVictim



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Bookstores, M/M, Oral Sex, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Romance, Trans Male Character, Trans Sam Wilson, Trans Steve Rogers, Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Sex, please read the tags before you proceed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-25
Updated: 2017-09-25
Packaged: 2019-01-05 09:22:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12187290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bravebrigand/pseuds/bravebrigand, https://archiveofourown.org/users/JanuaryVictim/pseuds/JanuaryVictim
Summary: The first time Steve met Sam at the bookstore, Sam stopped him from falling on his face and he instantly stole his heart. It took Steve two failed attempts to ask Sam out on a date, and it took Sam a day to start falling for him.Five snippets of the beginnings of their relationship inspired by five songs.





	1. Something Changed

**Author's Note:**

> Here's my fic for the Sam Wilson Birthday Bang! The beautiful art is by the amazing @bravenazar on tumblr, and I couldn't have gotten a better artist! Spread the love!

You first catch sight of him under the late-July sun. You’ve been tugging at the collar of your shirt, and at the binder underneath, with annoyed hands for the better part of fifteen minutes as you walk along the aisles in the bookstore; you’ve been brushing strands of blond hair out of your face and away from your glasses, and absentmindedly touching the spines of books you really have no intention of picking up. You just needed some time to yourself, you said, some time to stop thinking, some time to be alone with your thoughts, just you and your music. So you have been walking aimlessly up and down the store, an empty cup of green tea from the coffee shop two blocks down in your hand and your headphones firmly planted in their place. Every now and then, you nod and softly move your head to the tune of the song you’re listening to.

And then there is that flash of purple before you, there is the calculated motion of a muscular arm putting a heavy book in one of the top shelves; and suddenly your palms are sweating, and you are painfully aware that you can’t blame the heat.

You’re drawn to him like a moth to a candle; and as you step closer you can see the well-fitted purple uniform shirt and a silver name tag you can’t quite decipher. You see the side of his face: you see a beautifully sculpted cheekbone, and carefully trimmed facial hair, and you stare as he sucks his lips in, his dark eyes fixed on the shelf he’s stretching out to reach. His hair is a buzzcut with tight, small locs on top of his head pulled back into a small bun, and the first semi-coherent thought in your mind is that you would love to draw this man’s profile. When he suddenly steps down, you turn around—clumsy as only you can be, you trip on your own feet, and nearly fall straight on your face. It should serve you right for ogling strangers who are just doing their job, you berate yourself, but there’s a strong pair of hands around your skinny arms to keep you from falling.

He’s caught you. He’s smiling wide and bright _at you_ , and what a funny thing to feel lucky about. You can barely register that you’re scarcely holding yourself up by the knees, and you’re too aware of how sweaty your palms are. You have to remind your lungs how to work. Your heart is pounding, pounding, pounding.

You don’t register that he has spoken to you until what you’re sure is an embarrassing amount of time has passed, until the fog in your brain has cleared. And then, of course, you don’t have the faintest idea what he said. Carelessly, you pull your headphones down until they fall around your neck.

“What?” you ask, stupidly, breathlessly.

“I said, don’t worry, I got you.”

Finally, after what feels like at least seven and a half hours, you manage to hold his hand and stand up. It feels electric, the way his hands grip your forearm and your hand, the way he continues to smile at you, the way his eyes gleam under the sunlight filtering through the enormous windows on the other side of the bookstore.

“You okay, man?”

You don’t need a mirror to know how utterly pink your skin must be all over: face, neck, chest, arms, you’re a full-body blusher and you’re glad, at least, that if it is noticeable you can blame the heat, or the embarrassment. You know, of course, that the reason you’re blushing is because you’ve just imagined his soothing, deep voice saying your name.

“Yeah—yeah, I’m—I’m okay. Thanks. Thank you.”

For a second, you’re sure that this will be it. He will turn around, go back to his job, leave you here with your imagination going wild and your mind full of ‘what if’s. For a second, you’re absolutely sure, and absolutely disappointed, that he will leave, and you’ll never see him again, and you didn’t even get a chance to look at his name tag to pin a name on his striking face.

“I’m Sam,” he says, suddenly.

“Steve,” you choke out, and immediately feel stupid—it’s not like bookstore employees go around introducing themselves expecting to know their customers’ names.

“Can I help you with anything, Steve?” he says.

 _Steve_. It feels like music.

You feel as though the tips of your ears have gone from a mild pink to an angry red in a matter of milliseconds, and you’re painfully aware of your heart still pounding against your rib cage. You know another person, perhaps any other person, would manage to set anxieties and insecurities aside for a moment and say something to elicit the conversation you so desperately want. Another person, perhaps any other person, would be able to think of something witty to say—a comment about the heat, about there only being a handful of people in the store, about the fact that they almost fell on their face. They would be able to make Sam laugh.

“No, no, thanks I was just. Looking. But thanks,” is what you say, though.

Sam isn’t touching you anymore, but he is still smiling that bright, warm, beautiful smile as he takes a step back away from you and puts his hands on his hips.

“Alright then. If you do need anything, let me know. I’ll be around.”

Quietly, and completely sunken into yourself, you nod. You don’t even smile.

You don’t watch him walk away—instead, your eyes are fixed on the tips of your dirty, white Converse, and you stuff a hand in your pocket, turn on your heel, and walk out of the bookstore a lot more quickly than you came in. Outside, under the oppressive July sun, you shield your eyes and dump your plastic cup in a trash can on the side of the street. Instead of taking a walk in the park like you had planned, you go straight home. You’re glad to see Bucky’s not there yet, and you practically throw yourself facedown on your bed, arms and legs spread wide, and you groan into the messy white sheets. Idiot is the word you repeat in your head, like a mantra.

You spend a good portion of the night wide awake, carelessly eating popcorn straight out of the bag and watching documentaries on Netflix. And thinking about him, of course. About Sam.

It takes you six days to go back to the bookstore. On your next day off, you awake with a feeble kind of resolution in your heart; you shower, you put your clothes and glasses on, pick up your keys and wallet on the way out, and take the bus to that street. In your pockets, your palms are sweating as you walk inside.

Subtlety has never been your strong suit, really, and so you walk along the first aisle in the store looking around, wide-eyed and expectant, hoping to god that no other employee will see how utterly lost you look and come to offer their help. You make your way along the self-help section until you hit a wall, turn round a corner, and there he is—standing in front of a computer, his arms on either side of it, focused; and in the second that it takes for your heart to skip a beat once again, you somehow manage to arm yourself with courage and take those few steps towards him. He’s typing away at the keyboard by the time you’re next to him, and you—with the subtlety of a trailer truck spinning out of control on a freeway—clear your throat to catch his attention.

He looks at you for a second, and smiles.

“Hey, man,” he says, his voice casual.

You’re not entirely sure if this means he remembers you—especially not your name—so you operate on the assumption that he doesn’t. The smile on your face is small and stiff and the direct opposite of his cool, suave one, and though you’re, once again, too aware of every movement of your body, you manage to make yourself speak.

“Hey. Sam, right?” you say, as if you could forget his name, and watch him nod. “I was looking for this book, I don’t know if you could help me…”

“Sure.”

Your mind is blank for a long, stupid moment—you didn’t actually think this through, and for the life of you, you can’t even think of a single book. The title of every book you have ever read and considered reading has been effectively wiped from your mind, and you stand there, blinking, wondering how bad it’d look if you just took off without saying another word.

“Taash and the Jesters,” you spit out, not having the slightest idea why, of all the books you’ve ever read, of all the fancy text books and specialised anthologies you had to read in college, out of all the book titles that could have made you appear smart, knowledgeable, and interesting, your brain went straight to your mother’s favourite book.

Sam repeats the title, obviously never having heard of it, and nods as he begins to type it into the computer.

“It might be here in the second floor,” he says, smiling that smile that’s already burnt itself into your brain, as professional as it may be, and gestures for you to follow him towards the stairs.

As he walks up the stairs in front of you, you can’t help but look at his frankly amazing ass—you try to tell yourself it’s not something you would normally do, but you know it is a lie. For months now you’ve caught yourself staring at people a lot more often than you ever did: you’ve caught yourself staring at women’s hips and thighs, at the bulges in men’s jeans, at so many people’s asses and somewhat indiscreetly at times; and so now your eyes follow the mild sway of Sam’s hips and ass as they’re practically in your face. You stare at the back of his thighs, you silently thank whatever god exists for having created the jeans he’s wearing, and fruitlessly try to push away the dirty thoughts creeping into your mind.

Once you’re both in the second floor, you watch him put the metal stairs in place and watch him climb up the steps against the bookshelf. You’re entranced watching the muscles in his arms as he pushes books away, lifts a few, and reaches into the back of the shelf. When he stretches his arms up, you catch a glimpse of his belly under his purple shirt, and you take a deep breath as quietly as you can. A little embarrassed for making him do this on two other different shelves, you try to think of something to say. Anything at all: a silly joke, a self-deprecating comment—you’re so good at those, so why are you so tongue-tied all of a sudden? By the end of it, you feel like apologising and disappearing, but still you watch him reach inside the top middle shelf to produce an old copy of the book. By the time he steps down, your mouth is dry. He hands you the book, with nothing but a casual “Here you go,” and you take it—wouldn’t this be the right time to ask him out? Is that too bold? You’re not bold at all. How hard is it to ask when his lunch break is? How hard is it to start up a conversation?

As you find out, nodding silently, it’s pretty fucking hard.

“That’s a pretty rare book, huh?” he says, pointing at it with his chin. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone ask for it.”

“Yeah,” you say, frowning and pursing your lips, staring at the cover as your heart beats a million times a minute. “Yeah, I’ve been looking for it for a while,” you lie. “It’s my mom’s favourite.”

Dumb comment. Useless comment. Pathetic mama’s boy comment.

“I hope she enjoys it,” Sam says, and seems to mean it—but you can’t be sure if it’s the tone of his voice or how easy his smile is. All you can do is smile, pressing your chin to your chest.

“Anything else I can do for you?” he asks you.

You look down at the book, slap it softly against your palm, and begin to shake your head. “Nope. I’m good. Thanks.”

“Anytime, man,” Sam says.

You pay the twenty dollars for the book you have no intention of reading, and go back home to your routine. You have dinner with Bucky sitting next to you on the couch, watching Netflix without paying much attention. Later, you shower, you have a wank, you sleep, and the next morning, you show up to work.

After three days you go back to the bookstore, stubborn as only you can be, because you haven’t been able to stop thinking about Sam and his soft, beautiful brown eyes, Sam and his bright, wide, warm smile, Sam and the way he looked in that purple shirt; you can’t keep your focus on anything, really, because your mind is too busy wondering what it would be like to hold Sam’s hand, to make him laugh, to kiss him.

You step inside the bookstore with your hands in your pockets and a strand of blond hair falling on your face, already trying to think of a smarter book, a more interesting book. You remember a girl you had a crush on in college used to read books by Ian McEwan, and you never have, so you wonder if he’s intellectual enough, or literary enough to make Sam believe you’re a little interesting.

“Look who it is,” you hear his voice right behind you, and nearly jump out of your skin. You turn to face him though, and just about trip and stumble into an elaborate display of young adult books—but, luckily, you catch yourself.

You smile the second you see him smile.

“Hey. _Hey,_ ” you say, subconsciously deepening your voice for some reason—perhaps to appear more casual, more cool, more collected, less painfully infatuated—all these things you’re not.

“Back so soon? Hope there wasn’t anything wrong with the book,” he says, standing now awfully close to you—not that you’re complaining.

“No, no, the book was perfect, thanks,” you say. “I was just… Looking for another one.”

“Another book?”

“Yeah. Yes.”

He regards you for a long moment, his arms crossed over his chest. There’s a smirk on his face, and he studies you, your entirely awkward body language. “Sure, man. What book is it?” he asks, visibly amused.

You take a deep breath. You can feel your ears starting to turn bright red. You begin to stammer, and to babble.

“It’s a. It’s um. It’s this book—I read a great review of this book online the other day, you know? I read it and I thought, I thought ‘Oh I _definitely_ have to give this book a try’. It’s this book—a novel, it’s a novel, and it’s about—well, it’s interesting from what I heard, you know?”

“Right,” he says, and you can tell he’s barely holding in a laugh, the way his lips are stretching out, the way he sucks air in.

“It’s a novel, it’s a novel about... The war. World War 2. You know with the uh,” stupidly, you motion with your arm, not entirely sure what you’re saying, because he’s standing close to you—so close, in fact, that you can faintly smell his cologne, and it’s making your heart beat faster. “Planes,” you blurt out.

He laughs.

He literally laughs right in front of your flustered face. He shakes his head, then nods, then looks up at you—and man, you must have turned twelve different shades of red in the span of fifteen seconds.

“Well, _Steve,_ ” he says, and it makes your heart do a backflip, because he actually remembered your name. “I can help you look for this book about planes, or I could just tell you that my lunch break starts in twenty minutes. What’s it gonna be?” he grins a wicked grin, holding your glance.

And he’s confident and beautiful, every gesture in his face is dripping with effortless charm, and you can feel a lump in your throat. Your ears are lighting up like a Christmas tree.

“Yes,” you say. “Yes that—that sounds good. Great. Can I—? I mean, I’d love to—I’d love to take you out. To lunch. If that’s okay,” you stammer.

There’s his quiet laugh again. “You know, I’d love that, too. I can’t resist a smooth talker.”

The smile stretching your lips is somewhat painful, but you can’t even care.

“So I’ll meet you back here in twenty, if that’s okay. Unless there is an actual book about planes that you want me to look up?” he says, raising his eyebrows, in a smart-ass tone that you’re sure you could fall in love with.

“I’ll meet you here in twenty,” you smile, you chuckle, you look at your shoes with your chin pressed to your chest. You _beam._

Your palms are sweating as he winks and walks away, leaving you there, all alone with your giddy heart, your floating head, your shaking breaths.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is 'Something Changed' by Pulp


	2. Islands

Steve is a tiny thing. He is, for starters, quite a bit shorter than you. And to say he’s skinny would be an understatement. Looking at him makes you crave a sandwich, if we’re being completely honest—which is possibly why you went ahead and ordered one. Steve has enormous blue eyes, even if they’re hidden behind his cute, thick hipster glasses, and blond hair that you’re sure would be soft were you to run your fingers through it—and sure, you might be getting way ahead of yourself, but it’s hard not to. His lips are surprisingly nice. It’s impossible not to notice how big and crooked his nose is, and you wonder, vaguely, how many times he’s broken it. His hands are small and bony. You’re sure that his thighs are about the same width as your arms. Steve is a tiny thing, with a shy, slightly insecure smile that caught your eye the first time you saw it.

Of course you’ve thought about him. It’s not very often—or often at all, really—that a customer catches your eye the way he has, but there is something about this short, skinny blond that forced its way into your mind the day you stopped him from falling. You can’t exactly say there’s any kind of logical explanation behind this. It just is.

So, now, he’s sitting across from you in a café two blocks away from the bookstore. He’s sitting there, this tiny thing, with a giant cup of green tea and a giant slice of spinach quiche, and his ears are bright red, and you wonder if they have ever _not_ been red since you first saw him. It’s like the poor guy is in a constant state of blushing embarrassment, and if you’re being honest, and if your smile is to be trusted, it’s a very endearing thing about him. A ray of sunlight filters through the umbrellas above the tables and catches in his eyes behind the glasses, makes them glow, strong and blue and beautiful.

You take a big bite off your turkey sandwich and wait, amusedly, to see if he will get over his obvious nervousness and start up the conversation. But of course, all he does is take small sips off his tea and anxiously look up, down, to the left, to the right—anywhere but straight at you.

Your lunch break only lasts forty-five minutes.

“So, Steve,” you say, wiping your mouth with a napkin, leaning a little on your side. He looks like a deer caught in the headlights—those big eyes. “What was your plan? Were you gonna keep buying book after book every few days until you managed to ask me out?”

He chokes on his tea—actually, truly chokes on it. He clears his throat, and frowns, and for a second looks so damn _serious_ you wonder if you’ve insulted him.

“I was ready to buy at least a full third of the bookstore, to be honest,” he says, the frown still on his face and his eyes nowhere close to meeting yours. They’re focused entirely on his quiche. “So thank you for saving my credit card. I appreciate it.”

He looks up at you, finally, through his long eyelashes, and smiles something small and slightly lopsided and just—well, cute.

After ten minutes, you find that he is easy to talk to, once the initial nervousness has worn off. After fifteen minutes, you find that you love his voice, that there’s something comforting about it, something that makes you think of drinking a cup of hot chocolate and eating a chewy chocolate chip cookie on a rainy day, cuddled up under a blanket. After twenty minutes, you find that his laugh is musical, and contagious. After half an hour, in your mind’s eye, you’re no longer cuddling under that blanket alone.

As all good things must come to an end, you take one last sip off your iced coffee and take a deep breath. On the best of days, going back to work is unappealing. Right now, with Steve finally relaxed, finally talking about himself, finally asking about you, listening to you, laughing with you, it’s downright tragic. In an ideal world you would be capable of saying “You know what? Fuck it,” and staying here in this café with Steve until they closed. But your rent won’t pay itself.

“I really gotta get going,” you say, not hiding your disappointment.

“Oh,” he murmurs, and his shoulders suddenly look a little smaller. “Well that… That sucks. I was having so much fun.”

“So was I, man,” you say.

You are, of course, getting ready to pull out your phone and write down his number once you have asked him for it. But he beats you to it, for once.

“Maybe—maybe you can give me your number and we can go out again? I mean, if you want—if you want—“ he’s stammering and red as a cherry again, and you can’t help but smile.

“’Course I want to,” you say, because you can’t even think of a smart ass comment to tease him with—you’re just, already, looking forward to the next time you two meet.

You exchange phones, you throw your empty plastic cups in the bin, you walk out into the street side by side. Outside the entrance of the café, you look down at Steve—at those big blue eyes and his ridiculously long eyelashes, and the way he looks at you; how he stands a little hunched over, how he smiles as if he were supposed to hide it. And, really, you would love to kiss him. It seems like the perfect setting: both of you standing outside a picturesque café, a summer breeze, the early afternoon sun, the busy street. The taste of green tea on his lips.

Instead, of course, you give his bony shoulder a squeeze and say goodbye. With the simple motion of putting your hand on him, it looks as though you’ve pushed him back at least six inches. You think, for a second, that if he’s not careful a particularly strong gust of wind would carry him away and he would land in Canada.

“See you later, Steve,” “See ya, Sam,” two smiles, and you both go your separate ways. Before you know it, you’re back at the bookstore.

The rest of your shift goes by uneventfully; every now and then (and when you can’t spot anyone else around) you reach into your pocket and check your phone, just in case. A couple of times you swear you can feel it vibrate in your pocket, but there’s only the same three notifications you haven’t bothered checking since you woke up that morning.

When, at last, you’re back home, your dog bounces excitedly around your feet and barks a couple of times. Balancing yourself so as to not step on his paws, you shush him, and, once you’re fully inside and the door behind you is locked, you kneel down and play with his ears, make embarrassing kissy faces and noises at him, and muss the top of his head.

“Okay, Redwing, buddy, sit,” you coo at him. He doesn’t sit. He never sits. You’ve never actually trained him to sit.

You throw your messenger bag over the closest couch, and call out for Riley, your roommate, but he’s not home. On a table next to the door is Redwing’s leash, and you sigh, because at this moment you’d want nothing more than to have a nice, hot shower and go to bed, and laze around while a nondescript and kind of boring Netflix documentary plays in the background. Sadly, as the father to a very excitable chocolate Border Collie mix, you have your responsibilities. Namely, since you got home before Riley, it’s your turn to take Redwing to the park and play with him for a while. So you change your shirt, strap the leash to his collar, pull on a denim jacket, grab his favourite toy and your keys, and head out with him to the park across the street.

At this time in the evening, there’s usually a few other dog parents with their dog children at the park. Most of them are people you know—or, well, identify; and the vast majority are friendly people who love to let their dogs play with Redwing, and are okay just sitting next to you in silence as the dogs run around. So there’s no awkward small talk, and there’s a higher chance of you keeping an eye on Redwing so he stays inside the fence and doesn’t run after a car. 

A short woman whom you only know as Maggie greets you as you step inside the fence. Her dog, a very silly looking Beagle, is playing with a squeaky rubber chicken somewhere by a bench, and you throw Redwing’s beat-up toy octopus across the confined space so he can run after it. Maggie politely asks about your day, asks how your pup has been; politely, you answer, and then do the same. And it’s not that you don’t enjoy small talk—you’re actually decent at keeping a conversation going, it’s easy for you to make people laugh, make them talk, and you do like it. Just not so much after spending nine hours standing on your feet.

So, in true 20th century fashion, Maggie and you sit on opposite sides of the closest bench, and you smile at each other, and you both pull out your phones.

There’s a message from Steve.

You feel your heart skip a beat, feel an instant smile tug at your lips, just like an embarrassing high school crush from many moons ago.

**Steve:** Hey Sam, I had a great time with you today. I don’t know if it’s weird to text you but I wanted to tell you something maybe I should have told you before

You frown, and, you admit to yourself, you’re more than a little concerned. He appears to be typing, then he stops, then he starts typing again, and then he stops for a full four minutes.

**Sam:** sure what is it? you can tell me

He types, he stops, then types again. Then stops again.

**Sam:** steve youre making me nervous what is it?  
 **Sam:** are you actually straight? married? a serial killer?  
 **Sam:** a republican?

You manage to get a _God, shut up, no_ text as a reply, at least, but while that gets a chuckle out of you, it doesn’t exactly ease the tension.

After another excruciating two minutes, Steve’s text finally appears on your screen, and when it does, you can’t really understand the seven complicated motions your heart executes. It would be easier for your sports-ignorant ass to describe every one of Simone Biles’s leaps and hoops in the Olympics.

**Steve:** I feel like I should have told you I’m trans Sam

You stare at your screen, you blink, you frown, you check twice to make sure you read it right and then once again, in the remote chance that you’re misinterpreting Steve’s words, straight-forward as they are. You think of him, of the way he looked sitting across from you in the café, the way he held his hand in front of his mouth when he laughed, how that stubborn strand of hair kept falling on his face no matter what he did with it.

**Steve:** Sam?

“Shit,” you mutter under your breath, because until now you’ve realised you’ve let the poor guy hanging for a couple of minutes that must feel eternal to him, after coming out to you. But whatever words you can think of sound stupid, feel stupid—you really wish he had told you this in person, because then, instead of typing out a stupid and flat “Hey, don’t sweat it, man, so am I,” you could have said it, with actual emotion, with the actual comfort Steve would need at this time. There’s only so much a series of emojis can do to convey feeling.

**Sam:** yeah steve im here im just

You stop there. Why is it so hard, suddenly, to type out a simple “I am too”?

**Steve:** I’m sorry do you want me to stop texting you?  
 **Sam:** what??? no steve dont say crazy things. its just a funny thing

“Fuck it,” you mumble, stand up to walk a few steps away from Maggie, and call him.

His voice feels shaky and unsure when he picks up—truthfully, you didn’t even know if he was busy, or if it was a good time to call, otherwise, but this is important. Next best thing.

“Hey, Steve,” you say, an unintentional softness in your voice. The “yeah?” that comes on the other end of the phone is just as shaky as the first “hello?” and it makes your heart break a little—you’ve been there. You know what it’s like. You know how it feels, how nerve-wrecking it is; you know how your palms sweat, how your mouth gets dry, how your heart throbs in your ears and how the words struggle to come out of your mouth only to stumble out in a babbling, incoherent mess once your voice breaks. You know how time seems to stop. You remember what it was like, saying it out loud to someone for the first time. It’s been years, sure, and you’ve come a long way, sure, and you’ve come out to a number of new people with varying degrees of acceptance since then, sure. But that first time, all the shaking, sweaty, oppressive nervousness of it makes itself present every time, in the same varying degrees, and you know it’s never easy. That first time is one of the most vivid memories of your life. A turning point. And you remember how you felt like you were watching yourself from the outside, that odd feeling of being both present and absent. You remember feeling breathless and weightless with anxiety, waiting for the response.

Really, if you can make a moment like this a little easier for Steve, you’ll try your damn hardest.

“Sorry for calling you, I don’t know if you’re busy,” you start. “It’s just that it didn’t feel right just texting you, and we can go back to it right after we hang up if you want, but I wanted to tell you it’s okay. I’m trans, too, you know? I was gonna wait a bit before telling you, but hey. You have nothing to worry about, alright?”

You hear a deep sigh of relief, a little shaky, just like his words, and for a second you’re sure that you can feel the way his heart is caught in his throat.

“Wait, what?” he asks, sounding absolutely baffled.

“I’m trans, too, Steve. It’s okay. You don’t have to freak out on me, alright?”

A long silence, while you’re sitting on a different bench, watching a handful of stars up against the velvety sky. “You okay?”

“I’m… Yeah. I’m okay. I’m great, actually.”

“Cool. You wanna go back to texting?”

_“Please,”_ he sounds relieved at the suggestion, and you can’t help but smile to yourself.

The next thing he texts you is a long explanation of how nervous he was, how fearful he was, and how anxious he was—as if you needed to hear it to understand it. For a second, you wonder if he fully processed your words. But then, naturally, come the incredulous texts, the relieved texts. The questions, the shared experiences, the shared frustrations, the shared anxieties. 

You’re too busy typing away your replies to pay much attention to Redwing, until he starts to bark at a single, lonely car driving by the edge of the park. His toy octopus is lying some ten steps away from you, so you go grab it and call out his name to catch his attention. You toss it to the other side of the confined space, almost reaching the green fence, and run after him to pull at the octopus as he bites it and growls, his tail wagging wildly. You toss the octopus away again, then rinse and repeat; and all the while, you keep thinking about Steve. About this new fondness growing inside your rib cage. This new, tender bud of a feeling that you’re sure will bloom the next time you lay eyes on him.

Once you’re back home, and after a long, hot, much needed shower, you pull on your sweatpants and a baggy shirt half-covered in tears and holes, and go to bed, phone in hand. From the hallway, Riley asks how your day was, in a tired voice. Riley was the first person you came out to, the first person who listened to you speak your truth out loud. He’s your best friend. He’s your family. If there is a single person in the world with whom you want to share everything that happens to you, good or bad, it is him. And he’s dead tired at the moment.

“It was… amazing, actually,” you say, unable to contain the smile.

He comically takes two steps backwards and stands under your door frame, looking at you with narrowed eyes. “ _How_ amazing?”

You let out a laugh. “I’ll tell you about it tomorrow, dude. Go to sleep.”

He points a finger at you. “I wanna hear everything.”

“You got it.”

“Unless it’s dirty, I don’t need to hear that.”

“Why do you just assume it’s dirty?” you laugh.

“Just a feeling I get when someone says they had an amazing day and can’t stop smiling at their phone,” he shrugs.

“Man, shut up.”

“Night,” he grins.

“Night, Riley.”

You cover yourself with a thin, yellow sheet, curl up on your side, and read Steve’s last text. He’s surprisingly more eloquent in writing, and you imagine this is a result of his blatantly obvious social anxiety. It’s endearing, really.

You fall asleep at 2:37 a.m., still holding your phone. Still smiling. Like a high school crush, from many moons ago.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is 'Islands' by the XX


	3. Such Great Heights

Weeks slide lazily by, and before you’re aware of it, you look at your phone’s screen one morning and it’s already the end of august. You have spent most of your free time (and, honestly, a lot of your working time) texting Sam, calling Sam, hanging out with Sam, and gushing about Sam to anyone who will listen—which, for the most part, happens to be Bucky.

About a week after the night you came out to him—or, the night you came out to each other, really—you asked Sam out on a boring dinner and a movie kind of date. You frantically pulled shirt after shirt out from your messy closet, took two showers in the span of two hours, changed your jeans no less than four times, and spent a frustrating half hour staring at yourself in the mirror, trying to telepathically communicate with your hair and getting it to behave, just this once. You considered shaving your head, just to get it over with; but, thankfully, Bucky was there. Laughing at the train wreck you embodied, yes, but also willing to help. And while he wasn’t exactly known for his hairstyling skills, he managed to help you get your hair done, and said you should just pick clothes you were comfortable in.

“He’s seen you already, dude, he already knows your hair looks like… that,” he said, gesturing at you with his one hand. “He _likes_ you.” Bucky tossed a classy-looking button-up shirt at you, and, once again, told you to relax.

You met Sam at a hole-in-the-wall kind of place, a tiny Chinese restaurant a block away from the pretentious foreign movie theatre you promised was actually nice. He ate something slightly sweet with beef and red pepper, you unwisely picked a dish dripping with an incredibly hot sauce—in your case, ‘incredibly hot’ really just means ‘hotter than mild Las Palmas green enchilada sauce’, though—and ended up red, heaving, with watery eyes, all while Sam sat across the table from you and laughed so hard he cried and his stomach ended up hurting. The dessert was good, though.

You barely remember the movie you watched because, in spite of having seen him three or four times before, there was something about sitting so close to him inside the movie theatre that was making you feel a heavy kind of emptiness in your stomach. What you do remember, though, is looking at him. You remember seeing the way the light reflecting off the screen cast a game of shapes and shadows on his face; you remember thinking, again, that you would love for him to sit still for you to paint a portrait of him. A proper portrait, none of those silly sketches you’d made for people in the past. You remember thinking about how you’d love to capture the way his deep, brown eyes caught the sunlight, or the relaxed warmth of his smile. You thought that you would love to put his cute tooth gap on a canvas. Capture the way his skin reflected sunlight and glowed, and the exact texture of his hair. And you remember how he smelled. And the way your heart pounded, and how it skipped a beat, and how you smiled every time he laughed at something that happened on screen.

You remember, too, the way you looked at his hand resting on his thigh.

You remember your own palm sweating, you remember wiping it on your nice jeans, and you remember reaching out to hold his hand. A little scared that he’d pull away, sure, but you did it anyway.

He turned to smile at you like it was the most natural thing in the world, and he laced your fingers together.

There weren’t many things that could ground you when your anxiety was shooting through the roof, and even less things that helped you feel confidence. But you knew right then that Sam’s smile, and the way your fingers fit together, would become two of them.

For the rest of the movie you held his hand, you traced his knuckles with your thumb, you felt him do the same, and squeeze it. But you can’t remember a single line of dialogue.

What you do remember, what you’re sure you will always remember, is standing outside the pretentious foreign movie theatre with Sam’s hand in yours and the clear night sky above you, neon lights shining on you as you walked slowly down a cobbled street. How you felt brave just being close to him. You didn’t want the night to end, and he didn’t seem to, either, so your steps were lazy, as were your smiles, and the way you stroked each other’s knuckles. Standing on a corner, right outside a closed grocery store, you looked up at him. What he’d said just before will forever remain a mystery to you. But there, somehow, you worked up the courage to kiss him.

You grabbed the lapels of his jacket, and you softly pulled him down as you stood on your toes to meet him. Surprised as he was, he didn’t shy away from the kiss. Through your anxiety and your pounding heart and your weak knees, you could feel his hands on the sides of your face, and the softness of his lips on yours, and you felt so much joy you thought your heart would burst. You felt electricity as he deepened the kiss; you felt hunger as he touched your neck and gave your bottom lip a soft, teasing bite. You forgot how to breathe, and you couldn’t have cared less.

Sam was there, holding you, touching the back of your head and sliding his hands down to let them rest at your waist. Sam was there, kissing you, smiling against your lips, and that was all that mattered to you.

At some point, though, you did have to stop and breathe.

When you pulled back he kissed you again for just a fraction of a second, and pressed his forehead against yours. Pressed his fingers into the small of your back.

“I’m really gonna take you to see foreign movies more often,” you whispered.

He chuckled. Then he kissed you again.

What happened the following weeks is kind of a blur to you. You’ve gone to work, you’ve gone grocery shopping, you’ve paid your bills, cooked your food, then had Bucky fix the shameful seasoning of your food, watched your shows on Netflix. But above all, you have thought about Sam.

You’ve seen him two or three times every week. You’ve kissed him two or three times every week.

Most nights, you lie in bed with your phone in your hand. You spend hours texting, talking about everything and nothing all at once. He sends you pictures of his pup, Redwing, and says you’re gonna have to meet him soon. In spite of your allergies, you agree. You text him dumb memes, terrible puns, links to pictures and interviews of celebrities you’re both crushing on. You talk about work, about your college years, about your families. About your chosen families. He rants when he has a bad day, about his customers and his supervisor and how much his feet hurt; he tells you how happy he is when he gets to talk to his sister, or when she sends him pictures of his little nephew. You’ve heard him talk for hours about the books he’s read, so you’ve saved notes with the names of authors like Octavia Butler and Nnedi Okorafor (and you smile to yourself once you look them up, because Sam is a nerd). You notice that everything he says to you is always interesting. That you could listen to him talk for days on end.

You have window-shopped together more than once. Sam sent you a link to fancy oil paints that were on sale, which were beyond tempting, but even with a 40% discount they were wildly off your monthly “leisure” budget. (Your “leisure budget” is about forty dollars.) You sent him a link to a remastered edition of some Star Trek DVDs, because he is a giant nerd. Twenty-five discs for the low, low price of $39.99, which seemed to be such a great price that Sam bought them, and then threatened to make you watch the whole thing with him.

_Anything that makes you happy,_ you thought.

“I absolutely _cannot_ handle that level of nerdery,” you said.

One Friday night in early September, well past 1 in the morning, the window-shopping leads you to a cheesy sex toy website. You realise then that you haven’t truly got around to discussing anything explicitly sexual, that you’ve only had sloppy make-out sessions in the backs of movie theatres, and once in your apartment, when Bucky interrupted you, never really moving past your waists; and while the thought of having sex with Sam is beyond appealing—well, the thought of you having sex with anyone is a little less so. Still, you laugh and play along, as you’re showing each other impossibly large dildo after impossibly large dildo, vibrators with bizarre shapes that you aren’t entirely sure how one would accommodate them on their body, and butt plugs with creative things glued, encrusted, attached, or painted at the end. You have a good laugh, until the mockery dies down and things begin to get heated.

Somehow, he ends up telling you about the time one of his ex-girlfriends used a bullet vibrator on him, and the thought of it—you aren’t sure which part—sends a rush of blood shooting through you. Before you know it, before you can really process what you are doing, you are asking Sam for details he is happy to provide. Soon enough, Sam is describing things that were done to him that he loved, and things that haven’t been done to him but he is sure he’d love. Like getting tied up during sex.

**Steve:** You know I’d kinda be open to try that

You type and send, your heart pounding in many places other than your chest.

**Sam:** kinda?  
 **Steve:** I’d kinda… love to do that

You admit, sure that your face has never been this red in your life. Not even the day you had sex for the first time. Boring, vanilla, barely-five-minutes-long missionary sex in your first boyfriend’s bedroom while his parents went to the drycleaners.

**Sam:** you know steve you shouldnt tell me these things when im trying to sleep   
**Steve:** Maybe staying up isn’t such a bad idea  
 **Sam:** yeah? you promise me something worth staying up for

You can feel your heart pounding as you read his replies, and type back your own. Your mind goes wild imagining what Sam is teasingly describing.

**Sam:** you got me all hot and bothered here steven   
**Steve:** How hot and bothered?   
**Sam:** i kinda wish it was your hand down my boxers instead of mine right now   
**Steve:** Shit. Sam

You can really picture it; you can picture Sam lying in his messy bed, his legs lazily spread, one of his nerdy shirts carelessly pulled up to reveal his belly, the fabric of his boxers clinging tight to his thick thighs, and his hand inside them; you can imagine a layer of sweat on his brow, a slight frown, the muscles in his arms tensing with the motion; with every message he types you can feel yourself get more heated, and you can imagine the way he must be stroking himself. And, yeah, you too wish your hand were down Sam’s boxers instead of yours.

You imagine as much, and it is pretty much over.

**Steve:** Just so you know Sam  
 **Steve:** You just made me cum

It takes a few minutes to get a text back from him.

**Sam:** oh no steve. you cant say that until i actually MAKE you cum  
 **Sam:** and i do plan on it 

Your breath catches in your throat. You smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is 'Such Great Heights' by the Postal Service


	4. Warmth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's sex in this chapter, along with explicit fanart; please look at the fic's tags before reading it, and if any of them make you uncomfortable, do skip it! Steve's binder is mentioned in chapter one, and he does take it off here.

The first time Steve visits Sam’s apartment is a Saturday night in late-September, a couple of days before Sam’s birthday. They go there after spending a couple of hours browsing DVD’s and magazines at a department store and making an important stop to have a pair of frankly obscene milkshakes—Sam’s an adventurous Bailey’s and coffee one, Steve’s a decadent triple chocolate monstrosity he couldn’t even finish.

They walk three blocks from the subway station, the night air cool around them, and stop outside of Sam’s apartment. Steve looks around for a second, sees the empty street illuminated by streetlamps, and presses himself against Sam’s back—he’s not really tall enough to rest his chin on Sam’s shoulder, so he does the next best thing, and presses a kiss to Sam’s shoulder blade. He can feel the vibrations of Sam’s quiet laughter under his body, and he wraps his arms around Sam’s waist.

“Dude,” Sam says in between laughs, “I’m trying to find my keys, here.”

Steve nuzzles Sam’s shoulder blade and presses his hand against Sam’s belly. “I’m not stopping you.”

Quickly, with his keys finally in hand, Sam turns around and gives Steve a peck on the lips. He swings the door open for him to step in, and guides him to the third floor where he lives. Sam opens the door and steps in, turns on the lights, and calls out Riley’s name. When he turns to look at Steve, there’s an obvious kind of relief in his face at being met with silence.

Almost immediately, Redwing starts to bark and comes running towards the door. Steve watches Sam fumble to close it, and watches him kneel down to pet the dog—truthfully one of the cutest dogs Steve has ever seen.

“Hey, little guy!” Steve says, and immediately kneels down to pet its head. And soon enough, he starts to sneeze.

“Shit, Steve, I forgot about your allergies,” Sam says, laughing.

Steve sneezes again, and ungracefully covers his nose. “It’s okay,” he says, without sounding very convinced. He stands up to shrug off his jacket, and drapes it over the side of the closest loveseat.

Smiling, Sam effortlessly picks up Redwing and makes a kissy face at him when he sticks his tongue out. “I’m sorry, little dude, but you’re gonna have to stay away for a bit,” he says, and takes him out into the balcony, closing the door behind him.

“Is he gonna be okay out there?” Steve asks, still sneezing, with watery eyes behind his glasses, and visibly concerned.

“Yeah, don’t worry. It’s a small balcony, but his little doggy house is out there and I made sure it’s warm and cosy,” Sam says, walking back to Steve. “He always sleeps inside here, though. So that’s just… out there as decoration.”

“You’re a good father, Sam,” Steve says, solemnly.

Sam laughs. “I try.” He’s standing a step away from Steve. He licks his lips, looks down at Steve, and smirks when he sees that all-too familiar shade of pink on his face. Slowly, he places his hands on either side of Steve’s hips, and, slowly, he leans in to catch his lips in a kiss. “So, you wanna watch a movie?”

Visibly flustered, Steve nods, and fruitlessly tries to play it cool. “Yeah. Sure. Let’s.”

They take off their shoes and socks and sit on Sam’s comfortable couch and start watching a movie Sam promised would be hilarious. It’s filmed like a documentary, it’s about vampires, and it’s made Steve laugh out loud at least six times in the first half hour. But Sam’s leg is leaning against his own, and he can feel Sam’s warmth radiating from his body, and he can smell Sam’s cologne and a hint of his soap, and suddenly he’s lost the plot of the movie. He looks around the tiny apartment and marvels at how clean and orderly it looks, comparing it to his own mess back home; he tries to distract himself again by focusing his attention on the movie, but Sam shifts against him and slightly leans on him, and he can smell his hair.

Without really thinking about it, Steve moves to touch the side of Sam’s jaw, leans in and kisses him. Sam returns the kiss instantly, as if he’d been waiting hours for it, his hand lying on the side of Steve’s hip. Steve isn’t entirely sure of who deepens the kiss first, but it takes them only a couple of minutes to start using their tongues and teeth, breathing messily and groping at each other the way they have done a dozen times before—but, of course, there’s something different about being in Sam’s living room, tucked away from the world. It is something liberating and relaxing, and Steve smiles at the thought of it, against Sam’s full lips—Sam’s full, soft, sweet lips that drive him crazy—and lets out a sound against them. Suddenly feeling bold, he moves to straddle Sam’s thigh with the sole purpose of pressing his own skinny one against Sam’s crotch. He can feel Sam’s fingers squeezing at his arms, and he can both hear and feel him let out a deep breath. Again, he smiles against Sam’s kiss.

Sam lets go off Steve’s arms to put his hands against his hips and pull him closer; he indelicately moves his hands around and grabs Steve’s ass as he moves up against his thigh, sighing at the friction. Immediately, Steve responds: he grounds himself with a hand on Sam’s soft belly, and moves his thigh against him. Breathing hard already, Sam lets out the quietest moan and moves against Steve, feeling his ears burning hot and his heart racing, throbbing in every inch of him.

“Steve…” he mumbles against his kiss-swollen lips.

Steve shudders. He grips Sam’s jaw a little tighter and kisses him a little harder, unconsciously starts grinding against Sam’s thigh and sighing into the kiss.

“Fuck, Steve,” Sam gasps, his hands still firmly planted on Steve’s ass and helping him move back and forth with rough motions. His head is spinning. As if it were a reflex, he starts to rock against Steve’s thigh, letting out quiet moans against Steve’s lips; his chest is heaving, and he can already feel a patch of dampness in his boxers. “Jesus, Steve, please,” he whispers almost desperately, moving his hands up to touch Steve’s face, leaving wet, messy kisses on his face.

“What, Sam?” Steve replies breathless in a low, husky voice, much deeper than Sam’s ever heard.

Steve’s cheeks and neck are burning bright pink, and his blond hair is a mess. His lips are swollen, red, obscene to Sam’s eyes—he immediately imagines them on him, and he has to stifle a moan.

“Fuck me,” Sam murmurs against Steve’s lips. “God, Steve, I want you to fuck me.”

“Fuck…” Steve breathes, and gets off of Sam—it’s implicit between the two of them that it would not be a good idea to fuck on the couch and give Riley a show when he arrives. His knees are weak when he stands, and he feels that familiar emptiness in his belly when Sam joins him. He carelessly takes off his glasses and leaves them right there on the couch to worry about later.

They make their way to Sam’s bedroom (“Second door on the right,” he mumbles) with sloppy kisses and sloppy gropes, Sam making sure to stick to Steve’s hips, waist, and ass; Steve letting his hands roam freely over Sam’s torso. Right outside Sam’s door, Steve pushes him against the wall and pulls him down into a hungry kiss, grabbing his wrists and pinning them back against the wall. Again, he puts his thigh between Sam’s, against him. He can feel Sam moan into his mouth, and he can feel him rock his hips forward. When Steve bites his lower lip, Sam lets out a quiet whine, a shaking kind of thing, and his hips buck involuntarily. Though his mind is clouded at the moment, Steve tries, for a second, to remember the last time he was with someone so responsive, or the last time someone managed to turn him on this much without getting close to taking their clothes off. He can’t really think of anything. The one thought in his mind now, as he pulls Sam forward and guides him inside his room, is how badly he wants to make him feel good. He wants Sam to shudder under his touch, and moan his name, and scream, and come for him. He can barely stand it.

Sam carelessly slams the door shut behind him and kicks away some clothes on the floor, his lips still pressed to Steve’s, and they clumsily make their way to the unmade bed.

“Sorry about the mess,” Sam whispers between kisses against Steve’s mouth.

“You oughta be ashamed of yourself, Wilson,” Steve breathes, and stops when the back of Sam’s legs hit the edge of the mattress.

“Care to teach me a lesson?” Sam smirks.

Smiling, Steve practically pushes Sam onto the bed, and quickly moves to straddle his hips. Without thinking too much about it, he pulls off Sam’s Millennium Falcon shirt and throws it aside, Sam reaching up to kiss Steve for a second, before leaning back on the bed. Steve’s breath catches in his throat, for just a moment. He can see Sam’s tattoos for the first time, a pair of angelic wings across his pecs, thick, elegant black lines against his skin. He can see Sam’s scars across his chest, too, and the hardness of his arms’ muscles exposed, the soft curve of his belly. Immediately, he dips in to grab Sam’s jaw once more, kissing along his jawline, kissing a line down his neck; his mouth finds the soft, smooth skin of Sam’s chest and presses kisses to it, licks at it; he reaches down to grab Sam’s wrists and pushes his arms above his head, pins them down hard against the mattress with one hand, and he can feel Sam respond to his every motion. 

Sam gasps, and he spreads his legs to accommodate Steve. He squeezes his eyes shut, trying his damn hardest to stop himself from making the most embarrassing mewling sounds as Steve’s tongue and lips explore the centre of his chest, the sides of his pecs, the hollow of his armpit; he can feel himself helplessly moving his hips up, looking for contact that isn’t there. He can hear Steve’s surprisingly deep hums as he moves away from his armpit, releases his hands and traces a line of licks and kisses down his stomach, along his happy trail, until his small hands find the waist of his jeans. Steve kneels down on the floor.

“Jesus, Sam…” Steve whispers, his blue eyes darkened. He looks up at Sam through his ridiculous, long eyelashes, and pauses, silently asking for permission.

Sam immediately nods, pressing a hand to his own forehead, feeling his entire body ablaze and tingling with anticipation as Steve unbuttons his jeans and begins to pull them down.

Steve slides the rough fabric down Sam’s thighs and throws them away, much like he did that nerdy shirt of his, and he presses his face to Sam’s crotch, against his purple briefs. His hands slide up the smooth skin of Sam’s thighs, just barely squeezing the hard muscles of them, and he breathes in the scent of Sam with his eyes closed, something blissful in his blushing features.

“God, Sam, you smell so good,” he breathes against the sensitive skin of Sam’s inner thigh.

Sam can feel each of Steve’s words pulsating all through him, and his legs spread a little wider, as a reflex. He brings a hand down to tangle his fingers in Steve’s soft hair. It’s not that he wants to rush it, exactly—he’d be happy to stay here in this room with Steve for days on end—but the feeling in his core is overwhelming, and having Steve’s breath and warmth teasing him like this is almost too much to bear. When Steve’s nose presses against him through his briefs, he gasps and throws his head back. Just that second of contact is too much to handle, and if he’s being honest, he’s been on the verge of coming since Steve started grinding on him on the couch.

_“Steve,”_ he whines, an undignified, desperate sound as Steve’s nose rubs against him and his tongue laps at the damp spot just further down, his fingers barely pressing against him through the fabric. Steve gives an experimental stroke. “Fuck, Steve, _please.”_

With a quick motion, Steve pulls down Sam’s briefs; Sam lifts his hips just enough, and lets Steve throw the briefs over his shoulder. As much as Steve would love to get down to it immediately, he stops, just for a moment, to appreciate all of Sam. It’s almost overwhelming how lucky he feels—like the actual luckiest guy in the world, to have Sam trust him, to have Sam want him, to be able to see the way Sam smirks and props himself up on his elbows, his dark eyes fixed on Steve’s. He closes his eyes for a second, and presses his chin to his chest as he smiles. Quickly enough, he kisses the inside of Sam’s knee, watching him lie back down and sigh; he makes his way up his inner thigh, and presses the tip of his tongue to Sam’s lips. Tasting him for the first time sends a shiver down his spine, and he can feel it in the way his own body reacts, he really won’t be able to take it slow. He shamelessly licks his fingers and teases Sam with fingertips and tongue, moving down and yet not up enough to touch the hard place Sam wants; he feels Sam’s thighs tensing around him, and he props one up on his shoulder.

“Steve—“ Sam gasps, and takes a deep breath as Steve presses the flat of his tongue against his clit.

Soon, Steve takes him in his mouth, and swirls his tongue around him. The sound of Sam panting and moaning is like music to his ears, and it encourages him to continue; he softly sucks at it, laps at it, and teases Sam’s entrance with his slick fingertips. He presses the flat of his tongue against him, the entire lower half of his face against him. He hums as he licks and suckles and produces the most obscene, wet sounds, and eats him out like he was his last meal on earth, with an effort, a pure joy, and an eagerness that even surprises himself. It’s loud, wet, sloppy, fast, and around his head, Sam’s thighs tense and shiver, and he soon enough feels Sam’s fingers twisting in his hair, tugging at first, then pulling as he licks his fingers again and slips them in.

“Fuck, Steve, _fuck,”_ Sam cries out, then lets out a low hum.

Steve twists his fingers upwards inside Sam, his tongue still working at him, and begins to pull them in and out. He can hear Sam’s moans like a crescendo, and when he finds the spot inside of him, he twists his fingers again and begins to rub at it. A string of loud curses stumbles out of Sam’s lips almost instantly; he lets go of Steve’s hair and grips the messy sheets beneath him, twists them, pulls at them as he gasps and loudly begs Steve to go faster, and deeper, half grunting and half whining as his chest heaves. With another filthy smack, Steve moves his mouth away from Sam and begins to rub him with his thumb, his index and middle fingers still working at the spot inside him. He wraps his arm around Sam’s thigh and presses his palm down on his mound to keep him from moving, occasionally licking at him before pressing and rubbing his thumb a little harder against him.

Sam is gasping, panting with both hands covering his face and his elbows up in the air. From where he’s kneeling, Steve can see Sam’s muscles tense all over his body—his arms, his pecs, his belly, even his thighs.

“Yeah,” Steve murmurs in an oddly soothing, deep voice against Sam’s inner thigh. “Come on, Sam, come for me. I wanna hear you come.”

He presses down a little harder with the flat of his palm, rubs his thumb in faster circles, focused almost entirely on the over-sensitive head. It doesn’t take Sam too long to come. When he does, Steve can feel as much as he can see his body tense up; Sam cries out, almost a choked sob, and his thighs spasm and tremble on Steve’s shoulders. Soon, an indistinct list of curses mixed with Steve’s name follows; Sam’s muscles relax all around Steve, even through his erratic, noisy breathing. A thin layer of sweat makes his skin glisten, and Steve is sure that he’s never seen someone so beautiful in the immediate afterglow. He unceremoniously pulls his fingers out of Sam and slides up against his naked body; he catches Sam’s panting lips in a breathless kiss, and if there is any chance that Sam is grossed out by tasting himself on Steve’s mouth, he shows no sign of it. He immediately wraps his arms around Steve, playfully pulls at his messy hair, and then rubs their noses together.

“That was fucking amazing,” Sam mumbles lazily, still kissing Steve.

It’s a strange thing, to see Steve blush the way he does after what he’s just done.

“Let me?” Sam asks, his eyes and his hands pointing at Steve’s jeans.

Steve’s heart skips a beat, and his palms get sweaty almost instantly. As nervous as the thought of letting someone else see him and touch him makes him, this isn’t just anyone—this is Sam. It’s _his_ Sam. He would trust him with his life. And the way Sam’s looking up at him, soft and lazy and understanding—he wants to give him everything. Smiling, he nods, and shifts on the bed so Sam can easily undo his jeans and help him pull them down. He watches Sam kneel up on the bed and hover over him, pulling the jeans the rest of the way down and throwing them on the floor; he almost laughs when he sees that Sam doesn’t fool around at all and does the same with his briefs. Sam barely takes a moment to look at him, and he leans in to kiss him, his hand resting almost delicately on the crook of his neck.

“Shirt on or shirt off, Steve?” Sam asks quietly.

Steve feels a lump in his throat, and clears it to get rid of the uncomfortable feeling. His heart is pounding in his ears, and he’s sure it’s not all arousal. He can feel Sam’s fingers resting on his belly, not really trying to push up his shirt, not really insisting. He knows Sam will be okay with whatever he chooses, and he loves him for it. In silence, he weighs his options, chews on the inside of his cheek, and soon moves to kneel up on the bed. The motion makes Sam lie back down, propped up on his elbows, looking vaguely concerned for a second. But Steve takes off his shirt, and hesitates for half a moment, and takes a deep breath before peeling off the beige binder underneath. Once it’s off, he can feel his ears burning, much like his neck, and his chest; and he looks away at the place on the messy floor where the binder landed, a knot of anxiety in his stomach. He instinctively tries to cover his chest. 

From his spot on the bed, Sam watches Steve let out a deep breath, his pale skin tinted pink all over, and he studies the lines of the floral tattoos all over his left arm. He studies the soft shadows and curves of Steve’s body, its pointy edges, and the smoothness of his skin everywhere but the mess of golden hair between his legs and the leg hair that thickens below his knees. The bud of fondness he felt that night, months ago, has bloomed into something deeper. Softly, Sam touches the inside of his wrist to pull him out of himself. When Steve turns to face him, Sam smiles at him, small and understanding, and he reaches up to give him a peck on the lips.

“You’re fucking gorgeous, Steve,” he says, matter-of-factly, and laces his fingers with Steve’s when he hears him let out a quiet laugh.

Sam lies back on the bed and pulls Steve on top of him, limiting his touch to the crook of his skinny neck, to his collar-bones, and his waist. He gropes at Steve’s hips and then gropes at his ass, and tries to make him pull himself further up. But Steve doesn’t seem to get the hint, so Sam lets out a laugh.

“Dude, come on,” he says.

“What?”

“I’m kinda trying to get you to sit on my face here,” Sam says dryly.

Impossibly, Steve’s blush deepens, he whispers a tiny “oh” that, once again, makes zero sense to Sam given how good Steve just fucked him. “Okay,” he says, foolishly, and kisses Sam once before moving on the bed to straddle his shoulders.

Immediately, Sam moans. He wraps his arms around Steve’s skinny thighs, and closes his eyes as he kisses the pale skin of them. He wastes no time putting Steve in his mouth and working him with lips and tongue, hearing his voice crack and dissolve into little gasps. Sam fucks him with his tongue, and strokes him with his tongue, humming as he does. There’s a slight tingling on his scalp where Steve tangles his fingers in his bun and pulls; he keeps his eyes closed, hyper-focused on every motion of his tongue and lips on Steve, and he himself moans when Steve begins to rock his hips back and forth.

“Sam, Sam, Sam…” he moans under his breath like a prayer, his eyes squeezed shut and his fingers twisting into Sam’s hair for dear life.

Feeling Steve’s hips moving more frantically, making him rub against his nose, Sam manoeuvres to take Steve between his fingers, and to let his tongue delve into him as he strokes him. He loves Steve’s taste, yet feeling the way Steve’s hips are tensing, and hearing the way he’s gasping as he leans back to hold himself up on Sam’s thighs, he’s sure now is not the time to stop and speak his appreciation. Instead, he moans around Steve, and feels his own body pulsating again with arousal.

“Sam, fuck, _Sam,_ ” Steve cries out, and his hips tense up and away from Sam’s mouth. He messily falls forward and barely catches himself with his hands; instantly, he brings a hand down to roughly stroke himself and ride out his messy, noisy orgasm, Sam’s hands tracing and squeezing circles on his thighs.

With his legs shaking, Steve rolls off of Sam and falls back on the bed, panting loudly and keeping his eyes closed. And Sam, beyond pleased with himself, crawls up to Steve and kisses him, deep and lazy; he smiles when Steve whines and jerks away as he lets his hand rest on Steve’s hip, dangerously close to his crotch. 

“You know, you’re louder than you look,” Sam whispers, leaning on Steve to nuzzle the crook of his neck.

“Shut up,” Steve says, wrapping an arm around Sam’s shoulders, looking down to find their legs entwined. There’s something warm growing inside his chest, and he can feel it spreading to his limbs. Even though Sam can’t see him, he smiles, and presses a kiss to his sweaty forehead. He strokes Sam’s hair, and shifts on the bed so their bodies better fit together: Sam leaning on him, half on him, and Steve holding him close to his heart. He doesn’t even realise that he’s fully naked in front of someone else with no anxiety inside his chest, without feeling like he should cover up, without actively hating his body, until Sam’s hand brushes his ribs. It’s almost overwhelming.

“Your facial hair tickles,” Steve mumbles lazily, sweetly, out of nowhere. Sam chuckles against his chest, and Steve squeezes him a little closer. For a second, he can feel it clearly: he wishes he never had to let go.

“Oh, is that a complaint I’m hearing? I didn’t catch you laughing.”

Steve feels safe. Sam feels at peace. They both feel loved.

Their lazy kissing slowly turns into a lazy second round, a slower fuck, filled with gentle strokes and even gentler kisses, with soft words, soft gasps, and quiet orgasms; and then, an even lazier second round of cuddling.

There’s a smile on their faces as they drift away to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is 'Warmth' by Bastille


	5. Glory

You awake hours later, in the middle of the night. During its darkest hour, maybe, and you grope around the bed in search of Steve only to find a cold mess of sheets. Frowning, you jolt right up, looking around the darkness of your room. Concerned, and (you won’t lie) a little heartbroken, you stumble out of bed and pull on your sweatpants, walk over to the other side of the bed to turn on the light, and look around your room. You see your usual mess of clothes on the floor and on your chair, your pristine desk on the corner, and the movie posters on the walls. You find no trace of Steve anywhere. Though your heart sinks into your chest, you walk out of your room and find Riley’s door closed, and the rest of the apartment submerged in darkness. Knowing full well what to expect, you look inside the bathroom anyway, and you’re not surprised to find it empty. Halfway to the kitchen, you let out a deep sigh, and finally let yourself feel the disappointment of it all—and, sure, you try to rationalise it somehow, tell yourself you understand why Steve could have freaked out or got cold feet or whatever it was that happened to make him leave. But the simple truth of it is that you’re hurt.

You pour yourself a glass of water, trying to push down the feeling. You can’t help thinking yourself stupid, though. Getting your hopes too high, maybe. You had imagined waking up next to Steve in the morning, and making him breakfast, and maybe having a third, if unsexy and honestly impractical, round in the shower—but you got a little ahead of yourself, maybe. It wouldn’t be the first time.

A sneeze and a loud crash come from the living room, followed by the sound of what you guess are plastic pieces rolling on the floor, followed swiftly by a familiar voice crying, _“Shit!”_  
You almost drop your glass at the sudden sounds. Instead, you leave it on the counter and step out into the living room, to find Steve— _Steve,_ tiny, anxious Steve, fumbling in the dark to pick something up off the floor.

“Steve?” you ask, stupidly, because after what you’ve felt you can’t believe he’s actually there. That he didn’t leave you. You see his figure barely illuminated from behind by a streetlamp just outside your apartment. You can tell he’s only wearing one of your shirts, too big on him, and his briefs.

“Shit, Sam, sorry, did I wake you?” he says, and kneels down to grope at the floor, still sneezing.

You can feel your heart swell with relief—and with a tenderness you can’t explain.

“I thought you’d left…” you mumble with a weak voice.

_“What?_ Why would I leave? Without saying anything? I’m insulted, Wilson, quite frankly—”

“Steve, what the hell are you doing?” you ask, a huge smile tugging at your lips. You take another step to turn on the lights, and while Steve is making a monotone “uhhh…” sound, you look at the floor and find one of Riley’s trinkets scattered across the living room. It is—or, well, used to be—a cheap plastic music box that broke and which Riley has been meaning to throw away for at least two months.

Of course you don’t let Steve know.

“Damn, Steve, that was Riley’s favourite… knickknack,” you say, sounding concerned. It’s hard to hold back the laughter when he looks up at you with those huge eyes behind his glasses; you can practically see him sweating as he begins to stammer.

“Shit, Sam, I’m so sorry, I didn’t—I came out to have a glass of water and then I heard Redwing like, pawing at the door so I came to check on him, and then I started sneezing, and I couldn’t see so I bumped into the table, I’m so, so sorry—“

You burst out laughing at that—you can’t really keep your poker face when Steve starts babbling. You walk up to him and give him a peck on the lips, both to shut him up, and just to feel his lips again. Maybe to reassure yourself that he’s real.

“Steve, chill. He was gonna throw it away, anyway, you kinda did him a favour.”

He blinks at you.

“Come on,” you say, and open the door to the balcony. You don’t need to look back to know that Steve is following. Redwing immediately goes into the apartment, just as you expected.

The balcony is small, and with Redwing’s mostly useless doghouse out there, it can barely fit the plastic chair you put out there so Riley could step out to smoke comfortably. You stand next to it, and you look up at the night sky. You can see the glow of a thousand city lights reflecting on the edges of those deep blue and purple clouds, and for a second you wish you could see the stars. Steve stands right behind you; you can feel his body heat before you can see him from the corner of your eye.

You look back at him. He’s looking at the sky, too, his blue eyes wide and beautiful. Your Millennium Falcon shirt is way too big on him, and the lower half of his floral tattoo peeks out from under the sleeve.

It will be your birthday in two days. It’s never really excited you much, not even now that you will turn thirty. You suppose it’s true what they say, about age being just a number. You’ve had a rough time these past few years. To say that they have been a rollercoaster would be an understatement. You feel as though you have struggled with every single thing a man is expected to struggle with: your family, your friends, your relationships, employers, doctors, complete strangers. You’ve felt hopeless more times than you can count. You’ve felt lonelier than any person should, you know. You have thought yourself unlovable, broken, doomed to a lifetime of constant heartache and pain and loneliness. You have been a heartbeat away from giving up, from just raising your arms and surrendering, many more times than you would admit to anyone. And really, you tend to keep these things to yourself. You do not burden people. You do not bleed on them.

You’ve lost count of the times you’ve wished you could grow wings and fly away, just take off and disappear into the clouds, and maybe that’s the true, deeper reason behind the black lines on your chest.

It isn’t until this moment that you can see, truly see that you have made it through. That you have made it through the fighting, through the anger, the heartbreak, the pain, and come out on the other side an even better you. It isn’t until this moment that you’re standing in the balcony of your own apartment, while your dog and your best friend sleep safe inside, while Steve stands so close to you that you can hear him breathing, that you realise you have loved, you have been loved, and you have _survived._ And you’re glad you did. You’re happy you did.

You’re happy.

Without thinking much of it, you sit on the chair, and reach out to lace your fingers with Steve’s. Confused, he looks down at you—and you’re sure that he’s seen something in your face, that there’s something in your eyes, or perhaps in the way you smile, that betrays your happiness and (you admit, silently, freely) your love.

“Hey,” you practically purr, stroking Steve’s knuckles with your thumb.

“Hey,” he smiles, brighter than the stars would be, you’re sure.

Carefully, you pull him down into your lap and wrap your arms around his skinny waist. He lets himself be moved to fit over you, and then leans back against you. You can hear and feel his quiet, slow breaths, and you close your eyes—overwhelmed, suddenly, and quiet. You nuzzle the side of Steve’s shoulder and breathe him in, and you feel him reach up to stroke your hair.

“Hey, Sam,” he whispers, squirming to look at your face. “What’s wrong?”

You open your eyes and meet the slight frown on his face. That big, dumb nose of his, and his long eyelashes. His pretty lips.

Something inside you tells you, practically screams at you, that if there was ever a time to open up to him and tell him how you feel, it is this one. That now’s the moment you’ve been waiting for. That the words “I love you, Steve” should be the first and only to come out of your mouth after you’ve reached up to kiss the tip of his nose. That now’s your time to take your chance, and honour the feeling that has been steadily growing inside your heart.

You shift in the seat, and let your hands rest on Steve’s belly. Quietly, you look up at the sky once again, and you feel yourself start to smile.

You figure you’ll have enough time. Steve lets his hands rest on top of yours, and you’re sure of it. You’re in no hurry. And you’re convinced that there’s more perfect moments to come.

Maybe now the only thing you have to do is enjoy the deep blue velvet of the sky reflecting the city lights.

“Nothing’s wrong,” you say, and feel Steve cuddling up to you. You squeeze your arms around him, and kiss the edge of his bony shoulder. He strokes your knuckles, and nuzzles the side of your face. You sigh.

You’re _happy._

“Everything’s perfect.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the last chapter, thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed it if you made it this far. And thanks to the great friends I've made and to the amazing mods for all the love and effort they've put into creating the Sam Birthday Bang and into making it a safe space for us, it's been an amazing experience all around and I'm so sad that it has to end eventually. I love everyone in this bar. And extra thanks to my fantastic artist for all these breathtaking fanarts. I'm blessed and I'm not worthy.
> 
> Feel free to talk to me on tumblr @gothlumberjack!
> 
> Chapter title, and the song I strongly recommend you do listen to as it is a masterpiece, is 'Glory' by Bastille


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